There is a kind of grief that no one prepares you for. It is grief not found in the solemn pews of a funeral home or the quiet agony of a cemetery. It is grief that finds no resolution over time, but instead sleeps, silent under the skin until it wakes and bites deep and hard before falling asleep again and leaving you aching.
It is grief that finds me when I look into the mirror and don't recognize the eyes that look back at me. It is a grief that mourns a girl, lost to time and pain, a girl whose body didn't die but keep on going long after the spirit of her was snuffed out.
There is grief that sinks its teeth into me like a panther and reminds me of the girl I used to be; the girl who died. I mourn the loss of innocence and youth I used to be filled to the brim with until I was spilled out on the ground. I ache for the loss of the girl who saw the world through pastel hazes like her eyes were made of stained glass. I cry for the girl that no one in my life now had the chance to know. I cry alone for myself and who I used to be.
The grief that swallows me whole, unannounced and inconsiderate is one that I never prepared for in all my loss. It is inescapable and raw as I look in the mirror and behold a stranger. I miss her, I realize now, I miss the naive girl who believed in magic and had a dangerous faith in everyone she knew. I miss her, her bright eyes and wild laugh, and unburdened spirit.
Life teaches you to grieve the people you lose, but what I never accounted for was being among those people myself. How do you grieve yourself and live in the same skin after the person inside has died and gone? How do you mourn a spirit of the past while trying to raise a new one? How do you bridge the gap between who you once were, who you lost, and who you've found? I don't know.
I don't know so I weep at the sight of empty, strange eyes in the mirror and I cringe away from the foreign voice spilling out of my own mouth. I don't know how to lay her to rest, that girl I thought I'd be so sometimes I read her favorite books and sing her songs and try to catch her ghost for a moment. I read her diaries and smile as tears blur the lines written big and wild and in vivid colors that bring the stories to life. I close my eyes and wish she'd come back to life, if only for a moment to help me catch a breath. She breathed so easily, I remember now, breathed free and careless like life belonged to her. If only I could remember how to breathe like that. If only this useless body could remember for a moment how to live like it used to when she was pulling the strings. Instead, I have a new soul trapped in this discarded corpse of a body that so often feels like it doesn't belong to me. No, it belongs to her; to the girl that died. To the girl they killed. To the girl who deserved to live. To the girl I lost.
So instead I live clumsy and unsettled in the skin that doesn't feel quite right and I grieve her, I grieve and mourn myself. I am a grave unto myself, a grave no one visits. I am a living mausoleum free of flowers or condolences save for the grief that resides in my chest and roars so loudly it shakes these stolen bones.
